• Food Stamp Regulations |
• EBT Regulations

All links are to the Manual of Policies and Procedures (MPP) published by the California Department of Social Services (CDSS), which includes California’s regulatory “Food Stamp Manual” in Division 63, Chapters 63-001 through 63-1436. The Manual of Policies and Procedures also includes in Division 16 the Electronic Benefit Transfer System Manual with the California regulations governing its EBT system.

Unfortunately, these online regulations are posted in a very “user-unfriendly” way: The Food Stamp Manual has no index; the CDSS site provides no keyword search function for searching specific regulations; the regulations are broken down into relatively large PDF files, typically in 50-75 page blocks; and while there is a detailed “table of contents” at the beginning of each major chapter, each chapter’s beginning does not always coincide with the beginning of one of the PDF page blocks listed below. For example, Chapter 200 does not begin until page 51 of the block containing Sections 63-100 through 63-207. As a result, there is no practical way to link to specific sections or subsections of these regulations. (However, if you download and then open any of the PDF files linked below, you can use the search function within Adobe Reader to locate specific keywords within each file.)

Note: The federal Food Stamp Act requires annual cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) to allotments, eligibility standards and certain deductions. The annual COLAs are effective from October 1 to September 30. CDSS sends the annual updates in August via All County Letter.